We’ve had an amazing week delving into the wonderful world of birds. Our days were spent getting to know these amazing creatures who share the forest with us. The winter months are not easy for our winged friends, with food being scarce and harder to find. The frozen ground shields the worms from the birds’ hungry beaks and the fruit bushes and trees are not as plentiful as in the warmer months. We did notice the bright red holly berries are a popular choice of food for many of our bird friends and we are careful to mind our forest rule of no picking no licking so we can stay safe and our friends can have more to eat. We did a little research to find out what other things birds like to eat, and we found out that they like to eat seeds from flowers, for example finches and tits who like to munch on sunflower seeds. They also like to eat small juicy insects and grubs such as flies, grasshoppers, centipedes and millipedes. Water birds spend a lot of time on the shore looking for sea worms and water insects and the mighty birds such as owls, falcons and eagles use their sharp talons to catch mice and small animals. Since these are a little hard to find in the winter, we decided to help out the robins, wrens, blue tits, pigeons, magpies and parakeets that visit us in the forest, by making bird feeders. Some of us made loops of grain cereals to hang on trees and we prepared a lovely bird table with a small dish of water for the birds to drink and a bowl to put dried seeds and mealworms in.
We enjoyed watching our bird friends eat so we decided it would be fun to pretend to be mother birds. We prepared a nest with small baby birds and using tongs as our beaks, we picked up woolly caterpillars to put into the mouths of the baby birds. Some of us in the forest thought it would be fun to see who can make the cosiest nest. Some of us decided to make round nests so we looked for the curviest branches and twigs in the forest. Others decided to make it more rectangular, so we were looking for the longest branches to make the nest really big.
We also went on a bird hunt which was a lot of fun. We made binoculars to help us see the birds better on our adventure and before leaving we read a book to learn about the birds that live in the woods and in our gardens. We also learned the type of bird calls and songs they make so we can recognise them even if we cannot see them. On our adventure we saw robins who were not shy at all and loved to join us in our meal circle as we had snack. We also saw blue tits hiding in the brambles, parakeets making a racket while screaming overhead in the trees, woodpigeons noisily flapping their wings when they get startled, and the corvids watching silently in the trees.
It was so nice getting to know the birds and we are going to use our new-found knowledge to look out for them on our forest adventures. We will be sure to use our kind and gentle hands with them when giving them some things to eat and drink (especially in the winter), be quiet and still when they are sitting near us so we don’t scare them and take care of the forest by picking up our litter so they don’t accidentally eat something they’re not supposed to.
We’ll be back next time with stories of our next adventure!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham